2021 Life Logs, Day 9: World View
Date: Saturday, January 9, 2021
Weather: Overcast, Some Frozen Precipitation; High 33, Low 29 Degrees
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
Whether I’m talking to my friend Lynn in New Zealand or hearing from Phil, my daughter-in-law’s father in the UK, their view of what happened in the US Capitol on Wednesday agrees with the title line of an article in The Guardian, “The violence at the Capitol was an attempted coup. Call it that.” Many Americans, including myself, seem reluctant to say the words ‘attempted coup’ . . . probably because we refuse to believe this could happen in the United States of America. But it did. The article Phil sent me from The Guardian US Edition began this way: “On Wednesday, a coup attempt was led by the president of the United States. A rightwing mob attempted the coup in the form of a violent riot that stormed the Capitol building. They disrupted the proceedings that would have completed the recognition of the election of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. Those proceedings had been disrupted earlier by elected officials bringing forth bad-faith claims that the election was not legitimate and should instead produce a continuation of Trump’s presidency. This too was a coup attempt, an effort to violate the constitution and override the will of the voters in this election. Inside and outside were two faces of the same thing, and both were fomented by the leaders of the Republican party and by the US president. The mob outside would not exist without the politicians inside. Those insiders will make noises of horror and repudiation, but they own this.” I thought that was the best summary I have read. If you want to read the whole article, it can be found at: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jan/06/trump-mob-storm-capitol-washington-coup-attempt?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other
Today, to help divert my attention away from our political crisis, I watched a football game. My good friend Linda Stuart, now living in Colorado after biking around the world for the past few years, is from Buffalo, NY. And this afternoon the Buffalo Bills were in a playoff game against the Colts. Since Linda and I can’t be together, we watched the game ‘together’ and talked afterwards on the phone. Then tonight I watched a conversation between the Dali Llama, Greta Thunberg, and scientists, focused on our worldwide climate emergency. One of the scientists was a Woodwell Climate Research Center expert on the arctic and Heather had to actually go into work tonight to make sure things went smoothly on their end. The conversation was focused on the effect of climate feedback loops and the “urgency of the emergency” faced by all of humanity. At the end of the conversation and presentations, Greta was asked for an action step recommendation. She responded by saying that her wish is that everyone would take the time to educate themselves about the climate crisis. If you would like to learn more about climate emergency and climate feedback loops, there are five short films that you can watch online. Just go to: feedbackloopsclimate.org. I’ve watched two of them and highly recommend them.
